The Federal Government and organised labour in the country
on Tuesday finally reached an agreement that the Presidency would send the
National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Bill to the National Assembly after three
days of meetings.

The agreement came on a day that labour unions staged a
nationwide protest over the non-transmission of the bill to the National
Assembly by the Federal Government.

Unlike other meetings, the Tuesday meeting lasted for fewer
hours.

However, President of Trade Union Congress, Kaigama Bobboi,
warned that if the Federal Government reneged on the date it promised to
transmit the bill to the National Assembly, labour would take action without
any warning.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Nigige, who
presided over the meeting, assured the labour leaders that the Federal
Government would send the bill to the National Assembly on January 23, 2019
after members of the National Assembly must have resumed from their Yuletide
recess.

He added that necessary meetings on the part of the Federal
Government would be held next week to ensure the timeline was met.

The minister said, “As for the transmission of the executive
bill to the National Assembly, the government will religiously implement all
the processes that will enable us to transmit this bill within the stipulated
time.

“We have a target
time of January 23, 2019 and we hope that all things being equal, government
will be able to do so. We will take all statutory meetings of the Federal
Executive Council, National Economic Council and the National Council of State
meetings to enable us to transmit the bill on the new national minimum wage. I
thank the labour unions for their understanding and appeal to them that the
threats should come down. Protests are no longer necessary.”

While thanking Ngige for his role on the issue, President of
the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, said workers had been patient with
government for more than two years.

He added that after the submission of the report by the
tripartite committee that deliberated on the minimum wage more that two months
ago, it was expected that the Federal Government would have gone beyond the
present stage of making effort to transmit a bill to the National Assembly.

He said, “We have finally been able to reach a clear
understanding on the processes and timeline for this bill to be transmitted. We
are committed to the process and hope that the timeline will be respected. We
will put this across to our organs and give them all the details contained in
the Memorandum of Understanding.

“You will recall that our demand is for the bill to be
transmitted to the National Assembly. We want a firm commitment so that we
don’t come round a cycle. We want the agreement to be documented and signed by
government’s representatives. With that, we can follow up on the process.

“This thing has been on the table for more than two years
and having submitted the report, we expect that the bill should have been
submitted. The National Assembly will be back on January 16 from their recess
so on or before January 23, the bill must have been transmitted.

“We know that the National Assembly members are desirous of
making sure that Nigerian workers have decent wage, they will also be able to
do the needful. We will shift our lobby to the National Assembly because once
the bill is enacted; the money will be in the pocket of workers.

“Issues of industrial relations are always addressed at the
negotiation table. We have been diligent in the whole process and workers have
been patient, clearly we have carried them along, that is why whenever we want them
to be around, they are always around. We are tired of stories and that is why
we insisted on a timeline.”

Wabba, however, downplayed the agreement, saying that it was
only one step taken out of many in making sure that a new minimum wage was
paid.

“For us, it is a win-win situation but until the money is in
our pocket, that is when we can talk of success. It is still work in progress
and there are many more battles to fight. But once it is at the National
Assembly, the half of the work is done. The next level is the implementation in
the public and private sectors. But we are optimistic with the success of the
bill at the National Assembly,” he said.

Workers, in nationwide protests, say N18,000 no longer
realistic

But while the meeting between the Federal Government team
and the labour leaders was going on, workers across the country held nationwide
protests to demand the implementation of N30,000 minimum wage.

The protests were held in many states including Lagos,
Rivers, Osun, Ogun, Katsina, Bayelsa, Edo and Kaduna.

Before the meeting, Wabba had earlier on Tuesday morning led
workers in Abuja in a protest march from the Labour House to the Federal
Capital Territory Administration office.

Wabba said the present N18,000 minimum wage could no longer
cater for workers’ basic needs.

He said most Nigerian workers were unable to eat thrice per
day. According to him, workers should be able to take care of their family but,
in reality, he said, reverse was the case.

Wabba noted that in South Africa, the minimum wage was over
N120,000, stating that the political class in the country were not complaining
unlike in Nigeria. He also said that Ghana’s minimum wage was better that what
obtained in Nigeria.

The Head of Human Resources in the FCTA, Mr Lazarus Gaza,
received a protest letter from the NLC president.

In the meantime, although Nigeria has set a target of ending
gas flaring by 2020, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe
Kachikwu, said the country’s infrastructure gap remain a critical challenge to
government’s gas commercialisation agenda.

Kachikwu, who told The Guardian in an interview
last month that supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), has significantly
increased nationwide, noted that until potential investments in infrastructure
become a reality, the opportunities in the country’s gas resources could remain
elusive.
The Minister said with current investment in the 614km-40-inch
Ajaokuta-Kaduan-Kano (AKK) Pipeline, Nigeria would add about 3,500 megawatts
(MW) of electricity to the existing 7,000MW, and address challenges around
stranded gas.

He said though the country has drastically reduced the level of gas flaring,
government would have done better if infrastructure challenge was not a
barrier. Kachickwu said the sector has improved availability of gas to power
plants by 16 per cent over the last two to three years, and could have done
more if there was infrastructure.

“We need investment in infrastructure. In the developed countries, it is not
government money that brings infrastructure, it is investment. This is serious
enough to occupy a minister’s full time to get the policy and approval in
place, and driving round the whole world to find that money,” he stated.

Kachikwu said a considerable number of investments are currently awaiting final
investment decision (FID) to bring transformative investment to Nigeria, and
until the barriers are properly addressed, delivering value for gas could
remain a challenge.

Speaking on LPG/cooking gas penetration, he said: “We need
to get to a point where it will become so easy to find cylinders, so easy for
virtual gas supply in filling stations that the market woman has no zeal to
touch firewood. In some urban areas, there may be town-planning policies to
connect gas pipe to houses as it is done abroad.

“For instance, we can bring the gas to the Lagos doorstep, but getting to all citizens is going to depend on investors; investors, who are ready to invest in gas filling plants, and who are ready to put in their filling stations and so on.“What is important is the consciousness. The amount of consciousness that we have raised has forced oil companies to take notice that time is running out,” he said.

In this regard, he disclosed that the Ministry is in talk with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to provide support loans to people, who are investing in LPG penetration.He added that discussion is also ongoing with the Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), to do more in terms of local capture of opportunities.

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